


Ghosts of the Past

by lesbrarians



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Akuze, Alcohol, Background Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni - Freeform, CW Harry Potter Mention, Gen, Insomnia, Mass Effect 2, Nightmares, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbrarians/pseuds/lesbrarians
Summary: Shepard can’t sleep. Salarians function on only an hour of sleep a night. When wandering the ship in a sleepless haze one night, Shepard stumbles across Mordin and finds in him a late-night friend to keep her company. Set during Mass Effect 2, sometime post LotSB.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Ghosts of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Found this fic on my external harddrive -- I started it in 2014 and never completed it! It was literally so close to being done, so I finished it up. Enjoy!

Shepard had never liked the night. Nighttime meant sleeping, and sleeping was high up on her list of least favorite activities, right in between being interviewed and dealing with politicians. She might have been Commander Fucking Shepard, who could do almost anything she put her mind to, be it drinking a turian under the table or mauling the beefiest of enemies with nothing but her bare fists and the butt end of an assault rifle, but there were a few things she simply was not good at: dancing, driving, and sleeping. 

She'd never been one to get a full night's rest -- life on the streets growing up meant being ever alert and waking up at the slightest noise. In her youth, it was a survivalist instinct. Now that she was all grown up and commanded a ship with her very own captain's cabin, she didn't have to worry so much about staying alive through the night. The comfort of a full-sized, plush bed was more than she ever had on Earth, but still, sleep didn't come easy to her. She had her own demons to keep her awake: memories of her squad on Akuze being eaten alive by thresher maws and the survivor's guilt that came with the territory; the realization that she'd lost two years of her life after being spaced and brought back from the dead, and the slow process of rekindling relationships with people who had long since moved on; the daily tribulations of military life (she might no longer be a part of the Alliance military, having gotten roped into aiding Cerberus, but she was still a commanding officer) and the ever present stress of having to eventually lead another team into what was bound to be an inevitable suicide mission... sometimes it got to be a bit too much. During the day, she could distract herself by plunging into her work and surrounding herself with other people. At night, not so much.

She wasn't sure which was worse: not being able to fall asleep at all, or the nightmares and fitful sleep that came when she finally was able to drift off. Tonight was decidedly the former. She delayed the inevitable as long as possible by drinking at the ship's bar until Kasumi had finally forced her to leave the port observation room so she could sleep. Shepard had taken this as a sign to attempt to rest herself, only to toss and turn for hours. At 2 A.M., she gave up and sat up in bed, running her hand through her short auburn curls.

“This isn’t working,” Shepard mumbled to herself, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes until bright patterns swirled behind her closed eyelids. She threw the covers back and got out of bed, stretching her arms over her head and cracking her neck. Maybe going for a walk and escaping the suddenly claustrophobic cabin would help her fall asleep. At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself. Nothing else was working, so she might as well try stretching her legs for a bit.

Shepard pulled a pair of pajama pants on over her boxers (it wasn’t so much that she cared about the possibility of someone seeing her in her underwear as she was concerned about how much colder the rest of the ship was compared to her personal cabin, where she kept the heat cranked up) and headed for the door. She took the elevator to the third deck, where she knew she’d have to be quiet so as not to wake up the crew. She paced the perimeter of the mess hall. All she could think of was Liara. She had no doubt that lying in bed curled around her girlfriend would relax her and make sleeping much easier. There was something soothing about holding a warm body close to you and feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of their chest against your own. Besides, Liara had a way of making all the tension in her shoulders dissipate, which was exactly what she needed right now, when she was tightly wound up and battling insomnia. 

But she didn't _have_ Liara. She'd asked Liara to join her on the Normandy, that night when she came over for drinks and — _more_ , but she'd declined. It still stung. But Shepard could understand why: Liara was the Shadow Broker now. She had bigger and better and more important things to do than relive her glory days on the Normandy.

Shepard briefly considered messaging her, but if Liara was asleep herself, she would be racked with guilt for waking her up. As Shadow Broker, sleep was a rare commodity to come by, and the asari needed all the sleep she could get. She didn’t want to be responsible for disturbing Liara’s rest just because she was trapped in her own head and couldn’t shut off her own thoughts. 

Walking around aimlessly wasn’t helping. It was just making her even more restless. Shepard returned to the elevator, slumping down against it and groaning. There was only one other place she could think of to go, and that was the Engineering Deck. Listening to the quiet thrum of her ship’s engines was reassuring, and the tranquility might be enough to lull her to sleep. 

Her mind made up, she descended to the engineering deck. She was smart enough to know not to descend to the deepest depths of the decks and risk pissing off a sleeping Jack, so she made the executive decision to stick to the upper level. She turned left after getting off the elevator, intending to make her way towards the heart of the ship, when she heard two familiar voices coming from the port cargo hold. Apparently she wasn’t the only one still awake, although why they were conversing at two in the morning, she had no idea.

She opened the door to the cargo hold and peered in, mildly surprised to find that while she had heard Grunt talking, he was definitely sound asleep. The krogan was slumped over on the floor, his crest tucked under the shell of his hump. At her entrance, Grunt burrowed deeper into himself, mumbling a sleepy, “Don’t touch my pet rock.” 

“Shepard!” Mordin greeted, scrawling one last note onto his datapad with a stylus. “Surprised to see you here. Wasn’t aware you were awake.”

"Mordin?" Shepard whispered, doing her best to hide her utter confusion as she approached the salarian. "What, you couldn't sleep either?"

"Already slept. Overslept, actually. From 8:07 P.M. to 9:34 P.M. Will have to work on that.” Shepard raised an eyebrow, so Mordin elaborated. “Salarian sleep cycle different from those of most life forms. Only need one hour of sleep per night. Also, no need to whisper; krogan sleep apparently undisturbed by normal speaking volume.” 

With a quick glance at Grunt to make sure he was indeed still sound asleep, Shepard sat down on the floor next to Mordin. Even lowering herself onto the floor was a struggle; the sleep deprivation made her feel positively drunk, and what little grace she possessed had vanished entirely. She tipped her head back and rested it against the wall, her eyelids drooping slightly. “Only one hour, huh? I envy you, Mordin. I wish I could function on an hour of sleep a night. Hell knows it’d make my life a lot easier.”

“Yes, benefits of short sleep cycle clear. Less time asleep means more time awake, more time to study, work, socialize.” Mordin gestured with one hand, using the other to scroll through his notes. “Adequate compensation for relatively short salarian lifespan, utilizing almost all of the hours in a day.”

Shepard nodded. “Makes sense,” she commented. She’d always said there weren’t enough hours in a day, and it was true. Humans were lucky to be active for 15 hours a day, while salarians were awake and productive for 23 hours. She guessed it balanced out – humans had more years to live, but salarians had longer, fuller days. “So what are you doing down here? I would’ve thought you’d be tinkering around in the tech lab, not… watching Grunt sleep?”

“Tech labs located above crew sleeping quarters. Received complaints from crew members about noise from-- nighttime experiments.” Mordin cleared his throat sheepishly while Shepard snickered. “Original plans to test new bioweapon postponed. Now trying to study krogan sleep patterns. Somniloquy common among krogan, wished to observe it personally, but unimportant now. More importantly, you should be asleep. Optimal sleeping period for adult humans is between 11 P.M. and 7 A.M.” 

Mordin scanned Shepard, sharp eyes sweeping the length of her body and taking in her bedraggled state. “Eyes bloodshot, drooping, frequent blinking. Tired. Woken up from sleep? No, no… delayed reaction time, pallor suggest lower likelihood of interrupted sleep, greater probability of overall lack of sleep. Likely pushing 24, 30 hours awake. Insomnia?”

“You got it,” Shepard said, smiling wryly as she nodded. “Nothing out of the ordinary there. Figured I’d come down and listen to the engines for a change of scenery, and I thought I heard you and this big lug talking. Should’ve known it was just you thinking out loud again. And him… talking in his sleep. Sorry, I’m still not over that.” 

“I told you,” the krogan grunted, “don’t trust the flowers!”

Shepard chuckled and shook her head. “Can I see your research?" she asked, gesturing at the datapad, which Mordin gladly handed over, evidently pleased that she was taking an interest in his work. "Wow," she said, eyes scanning the lines of notes, penned in a thin, spidery scrawl, as if his hand couldn't quite keep up with his overactive brain. Mordin was the only person she knew who used a stylus with his datapad to take notes. She'd seen the way his fingers could fly over a keyboard before, but apparently even that wasn't fast enough for him sometimes. "You _are_ the very model of a scientist salarian." Her lips quirked into a smile as she mimicked the tune to the song Mordin had performed for her last week. 

Just then, Grunt growled, his voice a low, angry rumble, and Mordin looked mildly alarmed. “Ah, yes, would be preferable if you didn't sing. Singing evidently awakens krogan. Puts them in an angered state of being.” Mordin inhaled sharply. "Found that out the hard way. Not sure if feature shared by all krogan, or if subject simply doesn't enjoy Gilbert and Sullivan. Will have to run more tests. Perhaps another night."

Shepard chuckled. “Yeah, not sure either one of us wants to get headbutted by Grunt tonight. Too bad Wrex couldn't come along with us. You could have studied him too, find out if all krogan get angry when they’re woken up by a singing salarian."

"Agreed. Would have benefited from studying an additional subject. Still, would need more than two krogan for an adequate sample size.”

Shepard stifled a yawn. "We'll get Wrex to get us some test subjects from Tuchanka."

Mordin gave her a wry smile, tapping the end of his stylus against his datapad. "Doubt krogan populace at large would willingly subject selves to experimentation from a salarian. Regardless, good idea. Will make note to confer with Wrex at later date." 

Shepard pulled a face at him. "Touche." She watched as Grunt shifted his bulk around. "So, if this whole "singing wakes up sleeping krogran" hypothesis is true... krogan are the bipedal opposite of certain three-headed dogs?" She snickered to herself. "Maybe I should start calling Grunt Fluffy from now on."

"Hmm,” Mordin said, stroking his chin. “Not familiar with three headed dogs. Assuming they are species bred and raised by humans?" 

Shepard snorted aloud. “We wish. No, it’s a reference to an old piece of human literature. Really, Mordin, you’ve been in an interspecies production of _Pirates of Penzance_ , but you’ve never seen the interspecies edition of _Harry Potter_ ? It’s one of the classics. _I’ve_ seen it, and I didn’t exactly have the most cultured upbringing.” She neglected to mention that she didn't see it until some of her fellow marines shanghaied her into watching it during basic training, aghast at her lack of pop culture knowledge. 

“Heard of it, but never found the time to watch it. Not enough singing for my liking.”

“Mordin,” Shepard stated, scooting over and placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You haven’t lived unless you’ve read or seen _Harry Potter_. Remind me tomorrow and I’ll send you a download to the e-book, maybe organize the crew to watch the vid some night.”

“Yes, good plan. Social activities, bonding exercises, beneficial to crew morale.” Mordin fiddled with his omni-tool, pulling up the holographic display of his medical scanner, and scanned Grunt's body. As he jotted down his findings, Shepard nodded at the omni-tool.

"So what's with the scans?"

It was a rhetorical question, but one Mordin was more than happy to answer, launching into a scientific explanation of his research.

Shepard’s brain utterly refused to process the technobabble of it all, the words sliding in one ear and out the other. Regardless, listening to his incessant stream of thoughts helped still her own racing thoughts, calming her down. After growing used to the ever-present sound of Mordin’s mutterings in the tech lab, his voice had taken on the effect of white noise to her ears; it provided a sense of ambience that soothed her. For the first time in what felt like forever, she was _relaxed_ , instead of feeling like a tightly wound coil of tension. “Keep going,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed of their own will. She figured she’d just let them rest for a moment, like a prolonged blink, then she’d open them and do her best to listen to Mordin. 

She wasn’t aware that she was drifting off until she felt Mordin’s gentle hand on her shoulder, rousing her from her dozing. 

“Sorry,” he said, his voice apologetic. “Assumed you’d rather sleep in your own bed. Not strong enough to take you there myself, unfortunately. Had to wake you up.” He offered his hand to help her stagger to her feet.

“Yeah. I should go,” she told him, the words slurring together slightly in her haze of exhaustion, and he smiled.

“Of course. Sleep well.” He returned to his notes as she made her way towards the door. 

The doors slid open upon command, and she paused at the doorway to look over her shoulder. “Oh, and Mordin?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks,” she said simply, hoping that her tone was enough to express how heartfelt the sentiment was, because she didn’t know how else to express her gratitude. She hadn’t realized until tonight just how much she’d needed a friend at times like these, in the wee hours of the morning when everyone else was asleep. Lying awake at night with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company got lonely quickly.

“Anytime, Shepard,” he replied, and she could tell he understood. She nodded briefly in farewell and crossed the threshold, the doors to the cargo hold gliding shut behind her. 

\---

_Akuze is beautiful at night. No light pollution, not with the colony apparently abandoned. They'll investigate further come morning. For now, the marine unit is camping under the stars on a cloudless night._

_Shepard takes a swig from a bottle of beer and passes it to Toombs. They technically weren't allowed alcohol when they were on missions, but she'd smuggled it in her armor and was more than happy to share with her closest friend in the military. "Alright, there's a good one." She points at a constellation. "What's that one look like?"_

_"This game sucks, Shepard," Toombs tells her. He takes a swig of beer and passes the bottle back. "I can't tell which stars you're pointing at."_ _  
__She pushes her face next to his and points from his perspective. "There." She draws two concentric circles in the air, tracing around the stars. "Looks like a boob. See, that's the nipple."_

_Toombs snorts in appreciation. "You know I'm not much of a boob guy, Shepard."_

_"S'cool, we can find one that looks like a dick. Speaking of dicks. How are things going with Rogers?" She jerked her head at one of the sleeping men._

_Toombs sighs. "Not good. Might need your wingmanning prowess again soon."_

_"Only if you help me score with Tran."_

_"Done. She--" Toombs doesn't finish his sentence. He cocks his head. "Do you feel something?"_

_The earth rumbles dangerously beneath them._

_"Earthquake?" she says._

_"Yeah, mayb--"_

Something _bursts out of the ground, just narrowly missing where they were sitting. The force of the earth overturning sends them both flying._

_"What the fuck is that?" Shepard screams once she catches her breath, struggling to right herself. The beast towers above them, a subterranean worm that must have been thirty feet long. It dives directly at her. She rolls out of the way, just in the nick of the time._

_"I don't know!" Toombs shouts back. He gets to his feet, only to be immediately knocked off them once more when the awful, enormous worm surfaces next to him. Flying rubble pins him to the ground._

_Two more creatures burst out in unison. "There's more than one?" someone else in the unit yells — Rogers, Shepard thinks._

_"Take cov--" Tran shouts, but the words never make it out of her mouth. Something in Shepard dies at the same time as Tran does, her elfin body swallowed up whole by one of the beasts._

_All she can do is heed her dying wish. She scrambles backward, tucking herself underneath the turret of the unit's M29 Grizzly. If she stays perfectly still, maybe, just maybe, the creatures won't notice her._

_"Shepard, help me--" Toombs cries out, reaching out for her from beneath the mound of rocks and dirts._

_"Toombs!" she shouts, reaching out an arm. She doesn't move from the spot. Even if she did, it's too late. One of the monsters bursts out from directly underneath Toombs, its gaping maw clamping around his waist and dragging him beneath the ground._

_She can't move. Fear is a potent toxin, a paralyzing one, that keeps her rooted to the spot. She watches, helpless, as the carnivorous beasts pick off her unit, one by one. She screws her eyes shut, clamps her hands over her ears, but it does nothing to block out the cacophony around her._

_Screams. The inhuman roar as each monster pierces the soil. The gut-turning sound of bones crunching. The rumble of earth moving beneath her as each victim is dragged under._

_She doesn't know when it stops. She just knows that eventually, she doesn't feel that horrible rumble anymore._

_She opens her eyes. She crawls out from beneath the turret. There are no bodies, which is somehow more horrific than if she'd emerged to a scene of carnage. It's a ghost camp. Rations and sleeping bags are untouched. The only signs of a fight are the occasional spatter of blood and the mounds of overturned earth at each tunnel entrance._

_She approaches one such mound. Peering in the gaping burrow, she half-expects a thresher maw to burst out and swallow her whole._

_She sees nothing. The thresher maws are long gone._

_She stands up. Her knees threaten to give out. She knows that there is only one thing she can do to redeem herself for her cowardice, for_ letting _her unit get slaughtered._

_She jumps into the hole. Maybe, if she's lucky, she'll drop right into the thresher maw's open gullet._

_The tunnel ends on Ontarom. She falls from a hole in the ceiling and lands in a heap on the floor of a facility._

_"Shepard?" Toombs flips up his visor to get a better look at her. "My god, Shepard, is that you?" His gun still pointed at the Cerberus scientist._

_"Toombs?" she says, struggling to her feet. "But I saw you die on Akuze — I saw the thresher maw pull you under! How did you get here?"_

_Toombs gives a bitter little laugh. "They took me, Shepard. The scientists! They were running tests on the thresher maws. They let those things hit us just to watch and study. I woke up in a holding cell. The scientists were delighted I'd survived. Now they had someone to run tests on."_

_"Toombs, I-- I didn't see anybody," she stutters. "If I'd seen you, I'd have come back for you. I swear."_

_The scientist makes a feeble protest. He begs for his life; he demands a fair trial. Toombs isn't listening. He's looking straight at her._

_"This man deserves to die, Shepard. For you, for me, for everyone else in the unit. Are you with me?"_

_It isn't even a question. "Toombs," she begins, "if you kill him, you're a criminal. But I'm a Spectre. No one will question me."_

_Toombs speaks over the scientist's blubbering protests. "Damn it, Shepard, this is_ my _kill. You got out with a few scratches and a scary reputation._ I'm _the one they tortured." Toombs' voice changes to a guttural, inhuman growl. "_ I'm the one they tortured. _They should have tortured_ you. _You deserve to suffer the way we suffered. You let us die. You let me become a lab experiment. And now you're working with the same organization who tortured me?"_

_He swings the gun away from the scientist and trains it on her. The bullet strikes her in the neck, the arterial spray coating Toombs in slick bright red blood. She falls to the ground, crashing heavily on her side._

_"I'll see you in hell." Tomb empties the remaining bullets into his head._

_As she bleeds out, she can't bring herself to be mad at Toombs for killing her._

_It's what she deserves._

\---

Shepard woke up drenched in sweat, her breathing erratic. She scrubbed her hands over her damp face, muttering "You coward, you fuckin' _coward_ , you--I gotta— I gotta email him back, gotta tell him I'm sorry, I'm so fuckin' sorry..." The memory of the email Toombs sent her recently was still fresh in her mind. Toombs had his own merc team now. He'd promised to kill her if he ever ran into her, just like he was killing any Cerberus team he could find. She really couldn't fault him for that.

She dropped her hands and startled upon realizing that she was not alone. Her desk chair had been pulled over to her bedside, and she could make out the silhouette of a tall, gangly alien sitting at her bedside, backlit by the light of her aquarium. 

“Mordin?” She struggled to sit up, squinting at the clock. 4 A.M. About the time she usually woke up on the nights when she managed to fall asleep at a decent hour. “Why are you here?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Mordin reassured her. “Merely studying your sleep cycle. Have gathered enough from Grunt for the time being.” 

"Lovely," Shepard grunted, dropping her head back down on her pillow. "And what are your hella scientific findings? 'Cause if you can help me with this whole insomnia shit, it'd be much appreciated."

"Haven't been here long enough to say for sure. Blood alcohol content is abnormally high, however."

"It helps me sleep," Shepard argued, somewhat lamely.

Mordin nodded. "Alcohol responsible for reduction in sleep onset latency. Also responsible for poor quality of sleep. Reduces REM sleep."

"Look, my problem is _falling_ asleep. If the alcohol helps with that, who cares if my sleep quality sucks? Not like I'm getting restful sleep anyway, what with these fuckin' nightmares, which got nothing to do with the amount of alcohol I drink."

Mordin hummed thoughtfully. "Valid argument. Worth noting, however, that patients with liver damage are prone to insomnia and sleep disturbances. Consumption of alcohol may be affecting your liver and in turn, sleep quality. In the future, would advise against getting drunk before bed.”

“Mmmn,” Shepard grumbled, wriggling her head deeper into her pillow. “I don’t get drunk before bed. I don't get _drunk_ period, I just get _fun_.”

Mordin had to smile at that. “Nevertheless, recommend inhibiting liquor intake, if merely to test liver-sleep related theory. Also for medical reasons. Catastrophic liver failure unfortunate side effect of alcohol for most organic species.”

“Hey, now.” Shepard struggled to prop herself on her elbows in a sitting position, pointing one finger at the salarian. “Cerberus gave me a new liver, if they didn’t just restart the old organs. Either way, it’s basically a reset button. My liver’s fine, I can drink all I want. But… maybe I can lay off the alcohol for a few nights,” she grudgingly agreed. “Just for you, Mordin. But even if laying off the booze keeps me from waking up in the night, that’s not going to convince me to give it up. Just so you know.” She liked her liquor too much to go cold turkey. 

“Good,” Mordin replied, satisfied that she was willing to go along with his suggestion “And we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, go back to sleep,” he told her. “Will be here if you need me.”

Shepard smiled as she laid back down, pulling the covers back over her shoulders and rolling onto her side. That was a strangely reassuring thought. “Only if you sing me to sleep. I’m not like Grunt, it won’t piss me off, I promise. Got anything in your repertoire besides patter songs?”

“Hmm.” Mordin tapped his stylus against the datapad, rapidly cycling through his inventory of songs. “There is one…” He cleared his throat, then began singing, his voice gravelly but steady. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…” 

Mordin’s voice was familiar and soothing to her. He was the first person she recruited to join her team, and she would never grow tired of listening to him talk — or sing, as the case would be. She was sure there was some scientific reason for why she found it so comforting every time the salarian spoke. Maybe it was the fact that he had become her go-to companion. Garrus was her best friend, but he was always in the middle of calibrations. Liara was busy assuming the role of the galaxy's most powerful information broker. Mordin was never too busy for her; even when he was wrapped up in trying to determine how scale itch got on the Normandy or involved in one of his more dangerous experiments, he always had the time to explain what he was doing. He never minded her loitering around and watching him work. 

He was a good friend. A good soul.

“Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home…”

Shepard let her eyes drift shut. The melody was somber. Bittersweet. She could tell why Mordin liked it. It was, as best as she could tell, a song of forgiveness, of redemption, of salvation no matter the sins you committed.

A traitorous tear leaked out of the corner of her still-shut eye. If Mordin noticed, he didn't comment. He just kept singing. 

She didn't think she could ever forgive herself for letting her entire unit on Akuze get killed. She didn't think she could ever redeem herself for working for Cerberus after they tortured Toombs. But for right now, at this moment in time, she felt absolved of her sins. She let her breathing even out and the haziness of sleep overtake her. 

“Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease; I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace,” he finished. He scanned Shepard with his omni-tool, recording her vital signs. Based on her heart rate, breathing, and the subtle movements of her eyes beneath her closed lids, it was safe to assume that she had, at long last, fallen asleep. 

More information was necessary in order to determine the root of Shepard's sleep issues, however. He was willing to hypothesize that Shepard's alcoholism was at least partially to blame, although the frequency of her nightmares were indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder. Mordin made a note on his datapad to go through Shepard's psychological profile, as well as consult with a human about the matter of their livers. He was reasonably certain he knew just the human to ask: the one who had been complaining about pain in his side after getting up to use the bathroom earlier that day. "Must ask Joker..." he quietly muttered to himself. “How many livers _do_ humans have?" 


End file.
